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I am a Christian…so that I do not expect ‘history’ to be anything but a ‘long defeat’ — though it contains (and in a legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory.

J. R. R. Tolkien

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J. R. R. Tolkien
Age: 81 †
Born: 1892
Born: January 3
Died: 1973
Died: September 2
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John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
John R. R. Tolkien
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J.R.R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
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More quotes by J. R. R. Tolkien

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I will take the Ring, he said, though I do not know the way.
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My Precious, my Precious.
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Go back! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master.
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Middle-earth is our world. I have (of course) placed the action in a purely imaginary (though not wholly impossible) period of antiquity, in which the shape of the continental masses was different.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What's happened to the world?
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Though here at journey's end I lie In darkness buried deep, Beyond all towers strong and high, Beyond all mountains steep, Above all shadows rides the Sun And Stars for ever dwell: I will not say the Day is done, Nor bid the Stars farewell.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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Dwarves are not heroes, but a calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money some are tricky and treacherous and pretty bad lots some are not but are decent enough people like Thorin and Company, if you don't expect too much.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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Tears unnumbered ye shall shed.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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It is mine to give to whom I will, like my heart.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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But do not despise the lore that has come down from distant years for oft it may chance that old wives keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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He did not go much further, but sat down on the cold floor and gave himself up to complete miserableness, for a long while. He thought of himself frying bacon and eggs in his own kitchen at home - for he could feel inside that it was high time for some meal or other but that only made him miserabler.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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You cannot pass, he said. The orcs stood still, and a dead silence fell. I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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evil labours with vast power and perpetual success - in vain: preparing always only the soil for unexpected good to sprout in.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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No language is justly studied merely as an aid to other purposes. It will in fact better serve other purposes, philological or historical, when it is studied for love, for itself.
J. R. R. Tolkien
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Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising I came singing into the sun, sword unsheathing. To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking: Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!
J. R. R. Tolkien
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The Nazgul they were the Ringwraiths, the Enemy's most terribly servants darkness went with them and they cried with the voices of death.
J. R. R. Tolkien